Top 5 Must-Read Books for Business Leaders

Running and growing your business is a time-consuming effort that saps you mentally and physically. You might think taking time out of your busy week to read would fall so low on the list of priorities that you would never do any reading at all! However, great business leaders know that one of the tasks you can get the greatest boost to your bottom line from is reading great books. By furthering your business education and knowledge through reading, you can implement what you learn in your business and reap significant rewards.

Here are our top 5 books on leadership in business.

Good to Great by Jim Collins

This incredibly well researched book — 5 years of research — takes Collins and his research team through a list of 1,435 companies in an attempt to narrow down why some companies made it and others didn’t. They end up with 11 organizations that beat out other organizations that often started out in better position. The research goal was to determine what characteristics, including those of the leaders within the business, enabled the firm to survive and thrive while competitors failed. Don’t let the word research fool you; this is an engaging read that tells 11 fantastic stories.

Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization by John Wooden
John Wooden won an unprecedented 10 NCAA basketball championships during his coaching career. He brought together players of differing backgrounds and extracted every last drop of effort from them. Wooden’s success was built on his 12 Lessons in Leadership and his Pyramid of Success (25 habits that lead to personal excellence), and this book takes you through his thoughts on leadership.

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni

This book was written in a fictional style to best deliver some hard truths to business leaders. Sometimes it is easier to know what not to do than to determine everything you should do. Limiting your biggest mistakes can engage your team better and lead to great results. You’ll learn the 5 biggest mistakes failing teams make, and be able to learn how to avoid them.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey

Originally published in 1990, this book has topped many best selling lists and has sold over 10 million copies world wide. While focusing not on leading a team or organization, this book will aim to make you personally better both in your job and outside the workplace. However, the great lessons to be learned can be applied to your team back at the office.

First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently by Marcus Buckingham

The rebel inside you has to be drawn to the title of this book. Breaking rules? Sounds great. This book, published in 1999, isn’t based on one person’s perspective of leadership or running an enterprise. Instead the well researched title is culled from over 80,000 Gallup interviews over 25 years. The lessons were taken from both inside the business world and outside in other competitive industries. This book should help you improve in the management of your team.